


We Break Things Down Just to Build Them Back Up Again

by GalahadWilder



Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Parents, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It starts off normal and flips partway through, Love Square Reversal, Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, We stan a compassion queen, anti-salt, do no harm but take no shit, reverse love square
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-03-14 17:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18952711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Adrien promised he'd have Marinette's back, but no matter how badly she needs him, he won't take any kind of action to protect her—or, for that matter, himself. When Marinette discovers WHY he finds it so impossible to stand up to bullies, she resolves to put aside her crush to help him escape his abusive household.But the less she thinks about Adrien, the more she thinks about a different blond boy in her life—and the more time she spends taking care of Adrien, the more he starts to see her as more than just a friend...





	1. Stand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're anything like me, the salt in this fandom makes you extremely uncomfortable and you do your best to avoid it. This fic was written as a rebuttal to some of this rampant salt; however, in order to do so, the first section had to include some of it, as well as a little pettiness on Marinette's part.
> 
> Don't worry, it stops pretty much immediately after that. Except for Gabriel salt, because Gabriel is a slug who deserves all of the salt he gets.

Marinette is sitting against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, praying for her heartbeat to slow down, when Adrien Agreste finally says something that cuts her heart in half.

Adrien is sitting next to her, his hand on her arm, and for a moment it’s comforting. The way he’s looking at her, with concern, like he cares. He’s once again broken his promise, failed to have her back, and part of her wants to slap him for that but there’s a greater part of her is just happy that she isn’t facing this alone. He’s giving her an ear, even if her racing brain isn’t letting her speak. He’s giving her his time. He’s giving her his touch.

And yet she finds herself guiltily wishing Chat was here instead. Adrien, bless him, so sweet, so kind, is nonconfrontational to a literal fault. He’s a calming presence once things are over, but in the moment he’s completely unreliable.

Chat wouldn’t have let Lila get away with what she said. Chat would’ve ripped into the other girl on her behalf. Actually, come to think of it, so would pretty much anyone else in the class.

She’d been so happy that first time, when Adrien had believed her. Now she’s wishing it had been _anyone_ else. Even Chloé would be better than this. At least if _she_ were to say something it would be some kind of solidarity.

Instead, Golden Boy Adrien has to open his mouth and act like he lives on top of a fairy mountain. "I don’t know why you’re so insistent on going after her,” he says, like _he’s_ the one in the right here, like Marinette is the instigator instead of the classmate who won’t stop lying to everyone. “I mean, yeah, she’s lying, but it’s not like she’s hurting anyone—"

Something in Marinette snaps.

“Not hurting anyone?” she rasps. “Not _hurting_ anyone?”

And all of a sudden, Marinette has had enough. Enough of Adrien Agreste’s simpering, enough of his appeasement, enough of his refusal to stop obvious wrongs. "She’s hurting  _me_ , Adrien!” Marinette croaks. “She attacks me every ten minutes! It’s a miracle I haven’t been Akumatized!”

Adrien starts at the word, as if he hadn’t even considered the possibility, and Marinette’s rage mounts. What Paris has he been living in for the last year? He, of all people, should know what happens when this kind of injustice festers! But no, this is the boy who still defends Chloé even when she refuses to get better. Even when everything she does causes supervillains to line her wake.

Adrien grabs her hand, and she wants to pull away, but he’s looking at her with that stupid expression on his face again—the be-the-bigger-person, the turn-the-other-cheek, and Marinette realizes she’s sick of it. “If you let it go,” he says, “maybe she’ll stop.”

Marinette feels her veins chill. ” _That’s_ your solution?” she snaps. “Roll over and hope she decides to have mercy?” Adrien, she realizes, isn’t kind—he’s a _coward_. She’s been passing up her brave and loyal Chat for _this_?

”I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with you,” Marinette spits.

Adrien's entire face goes slack. "You... what?" he croaks.

Marinette yanks her hand away from him in disgust, clambering to her feet. "I hope you're happy with yourself,  _Agreste_ ," she snarls, storming away down the halls of the school.

She thinks she hears him choke, sob, behind her, but she can't be sure if she's imagining it. Still, she lets herself be satisfied, for a moment, that maybe for once Adrien is looking at her and seeing something other than a nervous wreck.

* * *

It's only once Marinette makes it home that what she's done finally sinks in, and when she pushes through the door to the Dupain-Cheng bakery it's taking everything in her not to burst into tears. She’s ruined everything. The last thread that’s kept her hanging for three weeks now, and she’s broken it herself. She’s going to lose all of her friends, and Adrien is never going to love her, and she’s going to have to go back to being alone again—

Her mother, behind the counter, sees her face and immediately drops her tongs. “Marinette?” she says. “What’s wrong?” Her face twists. “What’s that Lila girl done now?”

Marinette shakes her head, and finally breaks. “It’s—it’s not—it’s not—it’s not—not Lila,” she blubbers, collapsing onto one of the chairs. “It’s Adrien.”

”Oh, honey,” her mother says, coming out from behind the counter. She starts rubbing her daughter’s back, letting her cry herself out.

“Tom?” she yells to the back. “Can you watch the front for a few minutes? Marinette needs me.”

”Of course, Dumpling,” her father calls back. Within a minute he’s come through the door and waved them upstairs.

* * *

Collapsed onto her mother’s lap in the living room, Marinette—haltingly—tells her everything. Except the Chat Noir bits, of course, those are private. The whole time, her mother doesn’t stop holding her, cooing, and occasionally snarling whenever Lila comes up. The only reason her parents haven’t tried to get Lila expelled yet is because Marinette begged them not to.

When Marinette finishes, her mother is silent for a while before speaking. “I won’t say what that boy is doing to you is right,” she says, finally, “because sweetie, you really do deserve better.” She smiles, rueful. “You know you deserve better, don’t you sweetling?”

Marinette nods. “It—it sounds like there’s a... a ‘but’ coming,” she sniffles.

”Well,” her mother sighs, “it does sound familiar.” She smiles. “Rather like your father, in fact.”

Marinette looks up at her and blinks in confusion.

”You met Roland last week,” her mother says, still massaging her back. “Do you think he was a good parent?”

Marinette shakes her head.

"If there were ever two people who should not have had children," her mother continues, “it was Roland and Gina Dupain. Neither of them was particularly affectionate towards your father.” She smiles. “Oh, I’m sure they loved him well enough—in their own ways—but they never really thought to show it.”

Marinette is staring at her mother now, listening with rapt attention. This is starting to sound a lot like Gabriel, and she thinks she might know where this is going.

”Roland never gave your father any kind of approval, or kindness,” her mother continues. “Everything he said was about the ways Tom was a disappointment. As you can imagine, growing up in a house like that...” She waves her hand. “It does things to people.” She grimaces. “When people can’t get love from their families, they start to think they don’t deserve it. Your father thought that maybe if he acted better, if he acted kinder, if he just did what he was told without complaining, maybe his father would love him.” She grits her teeth. “But a man like that doesn’t ever express love,” she spits. “So things just kept getting worse.”

Marinette peeps in alarm. She’s seen her mother angry before, but the way she’s speaking about her father-in-law... she’s never been this furious.

Her mother smiles down at her. “When I immigrated to Paris,” she says, “things were very hard for me. I was a Chinese immigrant in an unfamiliar and unforgiving culture.” She looks up at the ceiling, soft look on her face. “Your father was one of the few bright spots in my life during that time. He was always so kind. But..." She sighs. "Roland nearly ruined it." Her face grows hard. "The things he would say to me...  _about_ me..." She growls. "Your father refused to stand up for me. Kept telling me 'give him a chance, he'll love you.'" She shakes her head. "You know how  _that_ turned out."

Marinette nods. Her father disowned, her grandfather unaware of her very existence. Not a particularly happy family dynamic.

Sabine licks her lips. "The truth is," she says, "I nearly left your father over it. I told him I couldn't be with someone who just stood by and let other people treat me like that without saying anything."

"Wait... really?" Marinette whispers, her eyes wide. She'd never known this part of her parents' relationship—she'd always believed they'd known they were soulmates from the start, never had that kind of relationship-ending disagreement.

Sabine nods. "Really," she says. "And he knew I was right—the way his father was acting was unacceptable. So he made the hardest decision he'd ever made in his life and confronted Roland over it."

"And his father disowned him," Marinette whispers.

Sabine nods. "That was a rough night, let me tell you," she says. "But what you have to understand is that the behavior your father learned never just applied to his relationship with  _his_ father—it's something he still does with everybody. He still forgets that he's allowed to disagree with me, sometimes." She stares off toward the kitchen, clearly not actually seeing anything. Just thinking. "From what you've told me of Adrien," she says, "Gabriel is much,  _much_ worse than Roland ever was. I'm not surprised Adrien has so much difficulty with confrontation."

"Oh," Marinette says. She's known for a while that the image of Adrien Agreste, perfect golden boy, is a lie; she's known that he's shy, and sometimes a little awkward. She never would have pegged him for insecure, though. And she  _never_ would have guessed how deeply, deeply unhappy she's suddenly realized he must be. He doesn't allow Chloé and Lila to treat him like that because he enjoys it—he simply doesn't know how to ask them to stop. "He..." she begins, stops, thinks. "Maman, I think he might need help."

"Probably," Sabine says, kissing her daughter on the forehead. "But it doesn't have to be your responsibility to give it to him." She strokes Marinette's hair, humming slightly as she does. "You have a big heart, sweetie, but you need to remember to look after yourself first."

Marinette's barely listening—she's already formulating a plan. Because what is being Ladybug good for if she can't help the people she cares about? "Don't worry, Maman," she says. "I'll be fine." Step one: apologize to Adrien for what she said today. Step two: she's not sure yet, but she'll figure it out when she gets there.

She's gonna teach that boy to stand up for himself even if it kills her.


	2. Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to be very rough, especially for people who have been in abusive situations before. This chapter is most likely going to be the very worst of it. I've provided a summary of the chapter in the notes at the bottom for anyone who needs to skip it.

Adrien walks through the rest of his day completely numb. He can't even process the things Marinette said to him; he thought she—that they were—he thought—he was trying to—

When he gets home, he shuts himself in his room, away from anyone who can see him, and collapses onto his bed. He's curled up in a fetal position, and he can't feel his fingers, and he can't stop shivering...

 _Don't be so dramatic,_ he hears in his father's voice.  _It's unbecoming_. He stays as quiet as possible so nobody else hears him, nobody else comes in, nobody sees him like this. Weak. Helpless. Vulnerable.

It's bad enough that Plagg sees him like this.

"Kid?"

Adrien shuts his eyes.

"Kid, come on. Talk to me."

Adrien sobs, then immediately snaps his mouth shut, trying to trap the sound back in his throat.

" _Adrien,_ " Plagg breathes, and Adrien breaks.

It's only seconds before his pillowcase is soaked through, because he's done exactly what he's been trying so hard to avoid—he's lost someone, and worse, that someone is  _Marinette_. Kind, gentle, sweet Marinette, Marinette who always gives everyone a second chance, Marinette who—who—

_Marinette who said she was in love with him._

Every part of him is collapsing. She was—she was—he can't deal with this. She's—he's ruined everything.

She needed him. She  _needed_ him, and he failed her. He's destruction and bad luck, he should've known better than to try to fix things when he breaks everything he touches. His father's right—he's just a disappointment—

"Kid!" Plagg shouts. "We gotta  _move!_ "

Adrien looks up, sees the black butterfly fluttering around his room, and his heart squeezes. For a moment, he thinks... maybe it'll be better to just surrender to it. To let go. To have someone else drive for a change, someone else to be responsible for his mistakes. Maybe Hawkmoth would do a better job.

But he can't betray Ladybug. And if _Chloé_ can fight off being Akumatized...

He looks up at Plagg, Plagg who is frantically swinging his paws around with crackling black energy, trying to atomize the butterfly before it can reach his charge. Plagg, who despite being a curmudgeonly glutton who never really says thank you for anything, despite being lazy and apathetic, cares more about Adrien than anyone he's ever known. Knows his failings, knows how bad a friend, bad a son, he is, and yet has never asked to leave, never given him anything but support (in his own cantankerous way). He feels a single bright spark of warmth flare in his chest.

He pictures feeding each of his emotions into that spark, letting himself go numb, burning away every single feeling of doubt or inadequacy that the Akuma could latch onto. Focusing on feeling nothing. Feels nothing.

The Akuma's headlong advance toward him stops, and it flutters, confused, before Plagg catches it and it bursts into a cloud of black dust. Plagg turns to him with a barely perceptible grin on his tiny face. "Nice work, Kid," he says—and then he sees Adrien's face, and his expression drops.

"Adrien," he says, "what did you  _do_?"

"Does it matter?" Adrien snaps, rolling back into bed. "It worked."

Plagg is silent for a moment, but then Adrien feels him settle in next to his sternum—right on his heart, in fact—where he curls up and begins purring.

* * *

Adrien wakes up to the sudden cold shock of Plagg slipping inside his ribcage, and he instantly knows there's someone in his room. He strains his ears—the creak is coming from the window hinges, not the door. Someone is  _breaking into his room_.

He lies on his bed, frozen. There aren't any weapons in his room, he can't transform, and without the suit he can't fight. His heart starts beating faster and faster, his pulse pounding in his ears—

And then the backs of his eyelids light up pink, and he hears a soft and familiar voice.

"Adrien?"

Instantly, his eyes snap open, and he twists to see Marinette kneeling next to his bed. Her hair is down, he notices, and something about that strikes him in the chest just above where Plagg is hiding—it's beautiful. She looks like she's been crying, but... like it was hours ago. Now she looks worried, determined.

"Marinette?" he whispers. "What—what are—" He looks over at the window. "How did you even  _get_ in here?"

"I... climbed," Marinette says, like it's the easiest thing in the world. And maybe it is—he's never tried it without the suit. Adrien makes a mental note that it is (unsurprisingly) physically impossible to keep Marinette out of places where she wants to be, but—

Why does she want to be  _here_ _?_

He's pretty sure, after the way they parted this afternoon, that she never should've wanted to see him again. Instead, she didn't just come to him, she  _broke into his house_ to talk to him.

"What are you doing here?" he manages to croak. Barely. Like if he says the words, she'll vanish, either like a hallucination or because she's realized she  _doesn't_  want to be here, and...

"I came," she whispers, taking his hand, "to apologize."

He boggles at her, speechless, and she averts her gaze. "Can I..." she says, her eyes moving to the bed. "Can I sit?"

He shifts, sitting up, making room for her in the bed, and she climbs in next to him, drawing her knees up to her chest. Neither of them speaks for a moment—he's wracking his brain, trying to figure out  _why_ she wants to apologize,  _he's_ the one at fault here and she made that perfectly clear, when—

"You don't feel safe in your house." She whispers it so softly he almost doesn't hear it, and it's not a question—she says it like a certainty.

He blinks. "It's—it's my house," he says, but she turns her eyes to him, and they're so  _blue_ , and it shoots right into his chest that she's  _right_ : he  _doesn't_ feel safe here. Not like he does at school. Not like he does at Nino's. Not like he does... not like he did with her.

He starts shaking. "Oh my god," he mumbles, and he's trying to grab himself but his hands won't stay _still_...

And Marinette, bless her, sees his hands and smiles. "You're _stimming!_ " she whispers, excited. She holds up her hand. "Here, try snapping," she says, proceeding to do exactly that.

He repeats the motion, and his chest sparks—he feels, not good, but better, like some of the discomfort has drained out of him through sound. He does it again, one more snap filling the room, and suddenly he giggles.

Marinette's beaming at him. "I didn't know you stimmed," she says.

”I don’t know what that is,” Adrien says. He snaps again, and wow does that feel good.

Her tongue pokes out of her mouth as she thinks. “You know how I... I flap my arms around when I’m anxious?”

”Oh,” Adrien says, his hand falling to the bed. “Father... Father doesn’t let me do that.”

Marinette’s face falls. “Should’ve known,” she says. She places a hand on his shoulder. “Adrien, the things I said today...” She chews on her lip, not looking at him. “I didn’t... it’s hard for you to stand up to people, isn’t it.”

He laughs. “Hard?” he says. How can it be hard? He’s Chat Noir. He stands up to _supervillains_.

Marinette stares down at her hands as her fingers wander aimlessly. “Yeah,” she says. “I... you’re always so uncomfortable when Chloé throws herself at you, but you never ask her to stop.”

”I don’t mind.”

Marinette grabs his wrist, shakes her head. “Yes, you _do_ ,” she insists. “You don’t _like_ it.”

Adrien tries to argue, but... but she’s right. He hates it. He hates the way Chloé touches him. And... and...

He gasps.

”Shh, shh shh,” Marinette says. She wraps her arms around his head, pulls him down, pats his back. He sobs into her shoulder.

”Marinette,” he says, finally. “Am I... am I a bad friend?”

She swallows. “I...” she begins, stops, closes her eyes. “You don’t mean to be.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that.

* * *

”I’m sorry I haven’t been... been standing by you,” he says eventually, once he’s calmed down. “This is—” He chokes. “This is all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Marinette murmurs. “It’s Lila’s and your father’s. Never yours.” She pulls back, looks him in the eye. “I’m sorry I blew up at you today,” she says. “I was just... frustrated and hurting, and I took it out on you.”

”It’s okay,” Adrien says. “I’m okay.”

Marinette purses her lips. “You know you don’t have to be,” she says. “Okay, I mean.”

He—he doesn’t know what to make of that either. Nobody’s ever said that to him before—he’s always had to be okay, he’s always had to forgive and move on, he’s always had to “be the bigger person,” even than the adults around him. And it strikes him for the first time how unfair that is.

Marinette grips his shoulder, massaging it slightly. “Adrien,” she says. “I—I want you to know... you will ALWAYS be welcome at the bakery.”

He states at her, uncomprehending.

She smiles. “Any time you need to get away from...” She gestures in a wide circle, encompassing his entire room. “...this, any time you need somewhere safe, my parents and I will do our best to be there for you.” She smiles, reaching into her purse and lifting her phone. “And if you can’t get away physically, I’m just ten digits away.”

His throat trembles as he tries to speak. “You—you mean it?” he says.

”Yeah,” she says, squeezing his hand. “I do.”

Then she looks away. “I should probably... go,” she says. “My parents don’t exactly know I’m here.”

A nervous giggle escaped Adrien’s mouth. He clamps his jaw shut immediately, but she’s already heard it, and she turns to him and smiles.

”I’ll see you in school tomorrow,” she says, then walks over to the window, opens it, slips out onto the balcony, climbs over the railing, and then completely disappears from sight.

Plagg emerges from Adrien’s chest, staring after her. “Well,” he says. “That was unexpected.” He looks up at his charge. “How’re you feeling?”

”I’m... not sure,” Adrien confesses, standing up and walking over to the window, swinging it shut. “It’s been a really weird day.”

It’s only once the latch clicks shut that he realizes that he’s forgotten to ask Marinette what she meant when she told him she was in love with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The summary, for those of you who needed to skip to the bottom: Adrien has a breakdown and narrowly avoids being Akumatized by intentionally deadening all of his emotions. He’s woken up from his nap when Marinette breaks into his bedroom. They apologize to each other, Marinette shows Adrien how to stim, and then tells him he can come to the bakery whenever he needs.


	3. Assert

The next morning is a little easier on Marinette than the previous few weeks have been. Sure, she’s got a few fresh bruises from falling off Adrien’s balcony—she hadn’t really planned how to _leave_ once she’d gotten there, kind of forgot she couldn’t just transform back in front of him—but otherwise, she feels a lot better. It’s always been easier to focus on someone else’s problems instead of her own; trying to help someone else seems to circumvent her anxiety and make even the impossible seem easy. (Alya calls it the “mom friend override.”)

So, focused as she is on Adrien’s problems, it’s easy enough to ignore Lila and Chloé and pretend they aren’t there. She’s made sure to get to school early this morning, in case Adrien needs her support, but he’s not here yet. She finds herself watching the door, tuning out Alya’s latest rant about whatever’s going on on the Ladyblog.

She sees Adrien through the windows of the classroom, and her heart rate picks up.  _Careful, girl_ , she thinks.  _Don't get distracted_ _—he needs a friend, not a crush._

Adrien pushes through the door, a little more slumped than usual, his eyes glued to the floor. She can always tell when he's not feeling great, of course, but she's never been able to get much nuance; usually too distracted by his face to see what's behind it. Right now, with a little bit of work, she pushes past that instinct, that distraction, and realizes that something about the way he's standing is familiar—it's the same way Chat held himself after Copycat and Syren. He's feeling guilty.

(She'll wonder about the similarities in their body language later.)

"Morning, Adrien!" she says as brightly as she can manage, forcing a smile. She knows he'll probably be able to tell it's not entirely genuine—she knows that he's feeling guilty about her, and she's getting a bit of guilt about hurting him like that—but she hopes he'll at least appreciate the effort.

He starts at the sound of his name, blinks a few times as he looks up at her, and for a moment he meets her eyes, confused. Then his face erupts in light as he realizes she's smiling at him. "Hi, Mari," he says, soft and shy.

Her diaphragm inverts at the sight of his smile, at the thought that it's for  _her_ , and she takes a second to force the butterflies back down her esophagus into her stomach before she speaks. "Are you feeling any better than yesterday?"

"What happened yesterday?" Nino says, turning in his seat to look at Adrien.

Adrien slides his backpack onto his seat and unzips it. "We, uh..." He coughs. "We got into a fight."

Alya's head snaps around to Marinette, eyes wide with shock and quite possibly horror. " _You_ got into a fight with  _Adrien?_ " Alya hisses.

Marinette purses her lips and nods, swallowing. She doesn't want Alya asking what it was about—it hurts to think about, but she doesn't trust her on the topic of Lila anymore. So she says nothing.

Adrien shrugs as he pulls his history textbook out of his bag. "It wasn't that big a deal," he says, laying it on the table. "Honestly I think it helped me more than it hurt—?"

Suddenly Chloé is on top of him, basically draped across his body. "Oh, Adrikins!" she cries, ignoring his flinch. "I'm so sorry Dupain-Cheng was mean to you!" She rounds on Marinette, arm still wrapped around Adrien's shoulder. "You  _better_ not have hurt—"

”Um, Chloé?” Adrien interrupts. He holds up a hand like he's about to press on her sternum, to push her away, but Marinette can see his chest tighten. “Can you... back up a little?”

Marinette’s heart leaps in her chest. He’s doing it. He’s... actually standing up for himself.

Chloé turns to him and blinks. "What?"

"I, uh..." Adrien swallows, his mouth hanging open, as he tries to pull away; he tugs against her arm, with no real strength to it, and Marinette’s breath catches in her throat. _Come on, come on—_

“Oh, no!” Chloé yelps, leaping backward and covering her mouth with her hands. “Adrichou, are you sick?”

Adrien swallows. ”I’m... yeah,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “I’m, uh, might have a cold.”

”Your dad didn’t let you stay home?” Nino says.

Adrien shakes his head.

Chloé stares at her hands in horror. “Ex-excuse me,” she says, shoving past Adrien and bolting for the bathroom.

Alya, Nino, and Marinette all watch her go, before Marinette turns back to Adrien. His body is still slack, still loose—she can _see_ his disappointment in himself, the way he’s devastated at what he probably thinks is a failure, and for a moment her entire mental process grinds to a halt behind the words _murder Gabriel Agreste_.

“Hey,” Marinette says. ”I’m proud of you.” She smiles again, holding out her hand. “That can’t have been easy for you.”

He stares at her in shock, his eyes drifting between her face and her outstretched hand. ”I didn’t follow through,” he says. “I—I’m not sick, I just—”

”That’s okay,” she says. “Asserting boundaries is hard”—she winces internally, remembering all of the sleep she’s lost just because she can’t say no—“and that was—was a good first step.”

“Wait,” Nino says. “You’re not sick?” He turns back to look at where Chloé went. “You just—dude, you lied to Chloé.” He turns back to Adrien, grinning. “Is it weird to say I’m proud of you?”

“Way to go Agreste!” Alya cheers, throwing a fist in the air. “Standin’ up for yourself!”

“You don’t need to get it right away,” Marinette murmurs.

The tension bleeds from Adrien’s body, and finally, finally, he looks like he’s not expecting someone to kick him. He’s relieved, she can see it, in the wavering corners of his smile, in the shining tears at the corners of his eyes. “Thanks guys,” he croaks.

Then he lays his hand, softly, in Marinette’s palm.

Her heart kicks into overdrive. She can feel the sweat gathering on her skin. The way he’s smiling at her, the way he’s—she forces it down. He needs her coherent. He needs her friendship, not her love.

”Are _you_ feeling better?” he says, his eyes soft and kind.

”I am now,” she says, and this time her smile is real.


	4. Avoidance

The mom friend override is working—Marinette hasn't flinched at the sound of Lila's voice all morning. Of course, Lila has barely been  _speaking_ all morning, thank the tiny gods, though that has nothing to do with her. They've started a unit on Vietnamese history, and, well... the version that the textbooks are teaching is... _heavily sanitized_.

It turns out that Kim may not know a lot about most things, but his family history? He knows really,  _really_ well. Most of morning class is spent with Kim actually _correcting_  Mme. Bustier in progressively louder and angrier tones. (She seems to be aware that he's right, but can't officially acknowledge it.) Lila is, for once, staying out of it, which Marinette thinks is one of the wiser things she's done: this is too delicate a topic for the Italian girl to pretend expertise on, especially with the mood Kim's already in. One wrong word and he'll immediately turn his vitriol onto her.

The problem is that Kim is having some trouble articulating his thoughts, and he's getting more and more frustrated the more words escape him. And the angrier he gets, the more trouble he has speaking. It's a vicious cycle.

Everything he's saying is something Kim's grandmother had explained to Marinette a few years ago. She and Kim had been closer when they were younger—as two of the only Asian students in a school full of predominantly European and North African origins, they shared a number of experiences that their classmates didn't quite understand, despite the differences between their cultures. So normally she'd be leaping in to back him up, to help him find the words, to—

Her hands are shaking. Her heart is slamming against her ribs. She  _knows_ that if she speaks up, she becomes a target. No matter what she does, Lila will immediately go on the offensive, find a way to attack her, to silence her, to turn her words against her. Even if she's supporting Kim, Lila will make it sound like she's being condescending towards him or needlessly antagonizing Mme. Bustier or _something_ , and...

And this is exactly what Adrien has been doing to her, she realizes. This is how he feels  _all the time._

She squeezes her eyes shut and gouges her fingernails into her palms, tuning out Kim and Mme. Bustier's argument and focusing her mind's eye on the blond boy sitting in front of her. This beaten-dog feeling is all too familiar to her—Chloé had pounded it into her over years of shared classes, and she'd only managed to break it thanks to Alya, Tikki, and Chat Noir. And even then it still came back sometimes before Lila retargeted it.

...and Chloé has been Adrien's only friend for eleven years. Oh, Kwami, this just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

She zones back into class and realizes that Kim has gone quiet. Bustier is continuing with her lecture, but she seems embarrassed. Marinette's willing to bet she's going to apologize to Kim later, and admit he's right. Only in private though.

She tunes Bustier back out again—she's saying something terribly incorrect and colonialist, and Alya's pencil is creaking under the pressure of her angry fingers. Most of the class seems kind of annoyed, actually, though whether at Bustier, Kim, or the French school system, Marinette couldn't say.

Come lunchtime, the atmosphere in the classroom is downright frosty, and everything that Marinette  _is_ is screaming at her to fix it. But somehow she doesn't think anyone is going to let her. Anything she says will make her a target for Lila and she doesn't really have anyone in her corner.

Her mother's words from last night come back to her: " _You have a big heart, but you need to look after yourself first._ " But... helping other people is part of who she is. She's  _Ladybug_ for Kwami's sake. She needs to feel useful. She just needs to fix  _one thing_ today; doesn't matter what it is, she needs to help  _someone_.

So it's a relief when Adrien turns to her as soon as the bell rings, teeth digging into his lip. "Uh, hey... Mari?" he says, his voice rough.

Her heart slams into her ribs immediately, and she has to swallow down anxiety bile at the thought that  _oh god he hates me why did I break into his bedroom he's going to call the police and I'll never see him again_. "What's up?" she chokes out. They're way past the point of calling cops.

Adrien's face falls. "I..." he begins in a whisper, staring at the floor. "I don't want to go home for lunch." He clenches his hands, his whole body tight.

Marinette can't miss the tension in his frame. "What do you need?" she says, heedless of Alya and Nino staring at them.

Adrien starts, his stunned emerald eyes locking on hers. "I..." His hand twitches, flaps, and he does something that's  _sort of_ like a snap but not quite. Relief spreads across his face. "Can I..."

"Of course," Marinette says with an unnaturally steady voice, her heart bursting in her chest like a balloon on the end of a fire hose, utterly heedless of the students who are beginning to file out of the classroom. "I told you. You're always welcome." She rests her chin on her fist and smiles despite the pounding of blood in her ears. "You don't even have to ask."

Alya glances between them. "What just happened?" she says.

Nino narrows his eyes. "I think Adrien just asked Nettie to invite him over for lunch."

* * *

"Thank you for not telling them," Marinette says as they cross the street between the school and the bakery. "About..." The muscles in her arm tighten with nerves, and she flaps her hand, letting the tension bleed out through the sudden movements. "You know, me breaking into your room."

Adrien glances at her hand, smiles as they step up to the curb. "You're doing that more often," he says.

She holds up her hand with a soft smile and snaps a few times. "The more I do it," she says, "the more comfortable  _you'll_ get with doing it."

Adrien grins, biting his lip with his front teeth. "You're amazing," he says.

She feels her face squeeze from the rush of extra blood, and immediately loses track of her feet. Which promptly smack against the leg of one of the chairs on the bakery patio. She shrieks, bracing for chin to strike table, but instead she feels the familiar crushing pressure of Adrien's arms across her chest.

"Whoa, Princess," he says, his voice stronger and faster than she's ever heard it, yet somehow achingly familiar. "Can't have you falling for me."

She squeaks, sliding out of his hands into the chair. She tripped and he caught her and he said—he said—oh gods, _everything about what just happened is a disaster she needs to move to Tibet._

"Mari?" he says. "Are you—"

"I'm going to explode, thank you!" she yelps, drawing her feet up onto the seat of the chair and hugging her knees to her chest, curling up into a fetal position. Even with as small as she is, she barely fits her whole body onto the seat.

"Mari, I'm sorry," Adrien says, sliding to his knees in front of her. "I—I forgot."

"Forgot?" she whispers, looking up at him through her bangs. "Forgot what?"

Adrien swallows. "That..." His fist clenches, and he pulls it close to his chest.

She reaches out to pull his arm out, holding it between them. "Stim if you need to," she says.

Instead, Adrien's fingers creak open. "I forgot you said you were in love with me," he whispers.

Marinette's breath turns to ice in her lungs.

"Didn't... mean to make fun of you for it," he adds, looking away.

She opens her mouth, tries to speak, "I—I—I..." she starts, trying to force the words out around the anxiety-blockage in her throat, but her brain is stuck on the first word like a record where the needle keeps skipping. "I, I—I don't... I—I'm..."

He collapses backward, falling onto his ass, his eyes wide with shock. "Mari?" he gasps. "Are you—"

She presses her palms into her eyes, _crushing_ them into her _skull_ , and _screams_.

 


	5. Proud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set before both Desperada and Timetagger, but I couldn’t resist throwing in a little irony.

As soon as he says it, Adrien knows he’s crossed a line. It's pretty obvious that she never intended for him to know; for as long as they’ve been friends—and she _is_ one of his closest friends, oddness of their relationship notwithstanding—she’s never given any hint that she might have feelings for him. It was a secret, a secret spilled in anger and frustration, a secret that was never supposed to be shared.

They could have pretended it never happened, and everything would’ve gone back to normal. She could’ve pretended she never said it and he could’ve pretended he never heard it and they could keep being friends, keep being—

By bringing it into the open, he’s changed things. They can’t go back. He’s pushed what they have from stable ground into the river, unable to see if there’s a waterfall coming, or sharp rocks, or... He doesn’t want to lose her. He wishes there was a way to rewind time, to undo just thirty seconds, to never have brought this up at all and to keep things the way they were.

Marinette screams.

He doesn’t even think before he’s holding her, brushing at her hair, whispering apologies. He worries that he’s done the wrong thing again, that she’s going to push him away, but instead her head drops sideways into his chest, the side of her skull pressing against his sternum.

”Are you okay?” he whispers, not quite trusting his voice.

She nods, keeping her hands over her eyes.

The back door to the bakery bursts open, and the massive bulk of Marinette’s father charges out, all fists and concern, making Adrien flinch at the memory of vines and _huge man-wolf_. “Pumpkin?” he cries, his eyes zeroing in on her huddled in Adrien’s arms like a killer robot analyzing murder targets.

Adrien’s joints all lock at once, and he’s unable to prevent a whimper from escaping his teeth.

Immediately, Marinette just... melts. Her legs slip out from her elbows, her feet smacking against the cobblestone patio as her palm caresses Adrien’s cheek, her fingertips scratching at his sideburn in a way that leaves him _undone_. Her eyes lock on his, blue fire blazing within, and he feels his heart calm the way he does when he sees the same look in his Lady’s eyes. _She’s got this._

”I’m okay, Papa!” she calls back without looking away from Adrien. “Just... made an idiot of myself in front of Adrien again?”

Adrien marvels at how Tom’s posture instantly relaxes, how he goes from “fight” to “jolly” in less than the time it takes Marinette to finish her sentence. “Oh!” her father says. “That’s—I’m glad.” He glances back at the bakery. “Sorry, I ran out on some customers...” He chuckles sheepishly. “We’re kind of having a rush today.”

Adrien’s jaw drops. He... he ran out on _customers_ because he heard Marinette scream? And he’s not angry because it was a false alarm? There’s no punishment? No lecture? No...

No _wonder_ Marinette could tell he’s afraid of his father, if this is what her relationship is like with hers.

Marinette twists her head, her pigtail batting Adrien in the face (which quite frankly _offends_ his inner cat. You _smack_ Kitty? You smack Kitty in the _face_? Jail! Jail for Princess!). “A rush?” she says. “Do you and Maman need help in the bakery?”

”I think we’re okay, Pumpkin,” M. Dupain says with a fond smile.

”Please?” she says, squirming a bit in Adrien’s arms. “I need something to do with my hands.”

He halts just before the door. “Well, if you insist,” he says, before heading back inside.

”Made an idiot of yourself in front of me... again?” Adrien says, gently helping Marinette to her feet. “Is that—does that happen a lot?”

Marinette bites her lip as she turns toward the bakery. “...Pretty much every day,” she mumbles, pulling him along after her by his wrist.

He stumbles after her, unsure what to make of what she’s just said—but suddenly the way she acts around him is thrown into a _very_ new light.

”Come on,” she says with a smile. “Want to learn how to bake?”

* * *

His arms quickly get tired and sore from folding the heavy dough, and Marinette steps in to take over. She points him towards a pan of sweet dough that’s already spent the morning degassing, tells him that they’ve got an order of Chats Noir—“like Swiss Mice, but cat-shaped and covered in chocolate”—shows him how to make the basic shape, and leaves him to it.

Aside from her very gentle instructions, Marinette is quiet while they make the dough. Adrien doesn’t mind. It’s so different from the instruction he’s used to getting from his father, or the photographer, or his fencing coach that he just lets himself go, riding the calm of her voice like an inner tube on an ocean tide. It reminds him a bit of working with Ladybug, following that familiar voice as she takes him through an unfamiliar task, not with force or frustration but kindness and faith. Of course, Marinette isn’t Ladybug and the babbling crowd isn’t an Akuma bearing down on them; with no adrenaline screaming through his skull, he lets the indistinct voices and the repetition of the shaping of cat ears drown out his thoughts.

It’s a bit cramped behind the shelves with four people, but Adrien finds his claustrophobia isn’t so bad when he’s distracted by the smell of yeast and sugar and honey and cinnamon.

Then the first batch of cat rolls is in the oven and the crowd has died down a bit, and Marinette finally answers his question. “Yes,” she says, not taking her eyes off the thick dough she’s pounding out against the table with her palms. She's quiet enough that none of the customers can hear her—this conversation is just for him. “I do have a crush on you.” 

 _Do_ , not _did_ , he notices. Also, she won’t look at him—she addressed her sentence to the unmade bread, not to him, though if that’s what it takes for her to not stutter he’s not going to complain.

”It’s pretty debilitating,” she says, still staring at the paste beneath her palms. “And I’ve done some... pretty stupid things because of it.”

”I’m... sure they weren’t _that_ bad,” he says as he moves to the mixing bowl and begins whisking the egg whites for the Cat’s Tongues.

”I’ve caused Akuma because of it,” she says, then her hands stop and she sighs. “Please don’t ask which ones.”

Adrien swallows. “I’m sorry,” he says. For someone with as big a heart as Marinette has, to have to deal with the guilt of causing an Akuma... He doesn’t know what else to say other than that.

She shakes her head. “My fault,” she murmurs. “My—my responsibility.” The wet slapping of the dough grows sharper.

Marinette's parents glance back at her, concerned, ready to jump in—as if this is a discussion they’ve had a hundred times—but Adrien gets there first, poking Marinette in the side. “Hey,” he says. “You’re allowed to make mistakes. Akuma are only _one_ person’s fault, and...” He smiles. “That’s not you.” Then he raises an eyebrow. “Unless you’re secretly Hawkmoth.”

She laughs. “No, no I am not,” she says, her cheeks pinking. She looks at him and sighs. “See, this is why I have so much trouble getting over you,” she mumbles. “How am I supposed to move on when you keep being so sweet?”

Adrien’s stomach bottoms out. _Sweet_. People have liked him for his looks, or his fame, or his celebrity, but... sweet? Nobody’s ever called him that before except Ladybug, and... she doesn’t feel that way about him. (Kagami’s talked about his “soft heart,” but she always seems to have a little disdain in her voice when she says it. Though he’s fairly certain that disdain comes from her mother, not from her.)

Adrien opens his mouth to apologize, to tell her that he’s flattered but there’s someone else, and then... then her father brushes past, jogging the mixing bowl in Adrien's hands, and he remembers vines and wolfman and what happened the last time he turned her down, and he hesitates.

 _I need to_ , his brain says. _It’s not fair to her._

 _He’ll hurt me again_ , his nerves reply.

 _Do we really want to say no anyway?_ his heart adds, quietly, unheard by the rest of him. _It’s **Marinette**_ **.**

But in that crucial moment of indecision, Marinette continues. “The thing is,” she continues, “I don’t think it’s fair to either of us to get into a relationship while you're still learning about boundaries.” She turns, taking a bench scraper and tearing the dough apart, using the scraper to round it into uncooked rolls. “It's not that I don't still have feelings for you.” She sighs, hangs her head. “I just—I think being your friend is more important. For both of us.”

Adrien's not sure whether to be crushed or elated. On the one hand, she's just given him the perfect out—the perfect reason to say no, to turn her down. On the other... on the other. There's another hand. Why is there another hand?  _Why is he so disappointed?_

He opens his mouth to say something—he's not sure what—but he's saved from finding out what his brain was going to spew next when M. Dupain suddenly turns around. “I think the cats are about ready, don’t you?” he says with forced mirth.

”Uh, I don’t...?” Adrien begins, at the same time as Marinette interjects “Papa, it’s only been—!” but her father bustles in between them and throws open the oven.

The cats are definitely not ready. Baked bread doesn't bubble like that.

"Oh, my," Tom says. He glances at Adrien. "Are you sure you haven't done this before?"

Adrien blinks, then shrugs. "No?"

Tom turns, waves his wife over. "Sabine, dumpling," he says. "Come take a look at Adrien's handiwork."

The cash register rings as she punches in the numbers for a customer. "In a minute, dear," she says.

Adrien bites his lip. "Did I do okay?"

Tom beams at him. "Adrien, son, you did  _beautifully_ ," he says, reaching up to ruffle his hair, which sends a jolt of _warm_ through Adrien's face. "Especially for your first time." He swings the oven closed and returns to stocking the shelves. "Proud of you!"

* * *

 _Proud of you_.

The mixing bowl is halfway to the ground before he even realizes it's slipped out of his hands.

_Proud of you._

He can't hear any of the rest of the shop—the pressure in his ears is squeezing in on his eardrums like q-tips.

_Proud of you._

Marinette is turning to look at him, and he realizes his peripheral vision is just gone, like a buzzing at the edges of his vision.

_Proud of you._

The bowl crashes into the ground, everyone in the shop jumps, and Adrien's crying. He's—he needs to stop, he's crying in front of  _people_ , he can't be, he, he—he can't breathe, he can't—

Marinette's mother's head barely comes up to his sternum; she is somehow, impossibly, even shorter than her daughter. He's trying not to melt into her arms.

"How long has it been since someone told you they were proud of you?" she murmurs, stroking his back.

He tries to speak, but only sobs instead. He can't remember.

He can't remember the last time someone told him they were proud of him.


End file.
